This blog is about the KCCD2009 (King Croesus Contempt for Death) Trip and it's preparations. The journey will be performed on 2x 1939 Nimbus motorcycles with sidecars and ETD is April 2009. ETA is unknown, as you never know if it's a Sweet Chariot or an Infernal Machine you ride.

Not much to tell about this part of the trip, and what interesting stuff there was, is best left unpublished. Along with us from Kiev to Odessa came Oxana, a serious and overeducated attorney, so we played 'Fear And Loathing in Ukraine' for a while. In the course of 500 k's we had encounters with The Law no less than thrice, so she came in handy. After Odessa we aimed for Kherson, a small industrial town a bit before the Crimea Peninsuala.

The Khersonites are good people, having given up cannibalism 100 years ago. Our man there was Misha, resident hippie-rebel-custombikebuilder. The genuine article. At times we couldn't tell if he was awake or not, and his body was – a best – due for restoration after 20 years of biking, frostbite, crashes and a 'San Fransisco in the late 60's' inspired diet. We stayed in the extremely friendly Misha & wife's apartment for a few days before riding on.

Didn't get out of town until 3 pm, so we scrapped the idea of riding to Sevastopol in one day. Instead we ended up with friends of Misha's, who met us en route and lead us, on increasingly smaller gravel roads and villages, to a farm right on The Black Sea. The farm was a virtual Noah's Ark of animals, and Antons dad claimed to be the governor, president & prime minister of the place. He also liked to sit in the Black Sea breeze and drink beer. It was a memorable evening of eating self-caught shrimp and massive Ukrainian farmer's food, while watching the sunset and the cows' shadows on our motorcycles.

Another drunk friend, this time from Moldova. Thought corruption was fine, it allowed him to drive drunk. Had balled almost 1,000 ladies, he said, and lost 3,000 Euros at the casino. as mild as a sheep, though, even when we drank all his liquor.